
'( 



J y 



ytJ^, 



V 



{XX. 



^-<UL. 



€0^1 



yriM 



^ ^■^£^^:^ 





aass_La^i 



Book 



'D 



6 '3 5 



m' 



LETTER 



TO THE 



HON. JOHN QUINCEY ADAMS, 



OCCASIONED BY HIS 



LETTER TO MR. OTIS, 



BY ALFRED. 



If, ye powers divine ! 

Ye mark the movements of this nether world, 
And bring them to account, crush, crush those vipers, 
Who, singled out by a community 
To guard their rights, shall, for a grasp of ore, 
Or paltry office, sell them to the foe ! ^ 

Voltaire's Mahomet 



i»»» — 



PRINTED IN AMERICA, 



1808. 






v-i o w tu 'Oi iifi. eni ,. I.i. b 

12 s 'oe 



TO THE HONOURABLE 

JOHN QUINCEY ADAMS. 

Clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature, and mix- 
ture of falsehood is like alloyed gold and silver, which may- 
make the metal work the better, but yet debaseth it ; for 
those winding and crooked courses are the goings of the ser- 
pent, which moves basely upon the belly, and not upon the 
feet. 

Bacon Lord Verulam. 



IF the power to do mischief belonged to vigour alone, 
and men were always innoxious in proportion to their im- 
becility, I should not have been tempted to enter the lists of 
controversy with the honourable author of the letter to Mr. 
Harrison Grey Otis, or to give the public the trouble of 
reading, or impose upon myself the painful task of writing 
the following observations. 

But the manifold experience of the few last years of this 
union, is pregnant with proofs, that dwarfs, when filled with 
disproportioned confidence, and armed with insensbility to 
the dictates of truth and honour, can do that, from the bare 
contemplation of which giants would recoil in despair, and 
that feebleness, when relieved from the check of moral prin- 
ciple, when uncontrouled by shame, and unappalled by con- 
science or remorse, is one of the most efficient instruments 
of evil, with which Providence is pleased occasionally to 
scourge this guilty world. There cannot be a greater, 
seldom is there a more fatal mistake, than that old vulgar 
error, that men are necessarily innoxious because they are 



4 

impotent. History teems with incident to prove the re- 
verse — History, not only profane, but sacred. When the 
Almighty willed the punishment of a guilty race, he poured 
forth his wrath upon them, not in armed hosts of sangui- 
nary men, not in the shape of lions, tigers, or the tremen- 
dous devouring quadrupeds of the forest, but in clouds of 
mean and miserable animalculfe, in myriads of nauseous 
vermin, whose weakness was contemptible, whose bulk was-^ 
barely visible, whose form and qualities were loathsome., 
but whose capacity to destroy was, as the pestilence itself, 
deadly and Unerring. In this country we have seen prodi- 
gies of mischief performed by men, of whom lampoon it- 
self might blush to speak. When individuals or nations 
are struck down by the hands of the mighty, the magnitude 
of the power that crushes gives a lustre to their ruin ; 
the evil of their fall is tempered with the conscious pride 
of a noble and generous resistance ; from the splendid ex- 
panse of the overwhelming body they derive a reflected 
glory, and magnanimity would exultingly take a share 
in their fate. But when they sink under the blighting 
touch of the weak and miserable, their condition is that 
of unqualified wretchedness ; it is all shade, and, contrary to 
the order of nature, shade without a ray of light. It is 
pure defecated evil, horror refined, unalloyed, and 
unmitigated by one consolatory reflection. — Grief, and 
shame, and anger, and self-reproach, and the saddening con- 
sciousness of disgrace and ignominy, and the relentless 
scorn of the world, unpaliated even by the humiliating boon 
of pity, which, though it degrades its object, in some degree 
softens the rigour of his fate, close up the accoimts forever, 
and give the sufferer over to irremediable ruin, his character 
to the grave, and his feelings to torture, from which he has 
no refuge under heaven but in a callous insensibility, still 
more disgraceful than the rest. The people of Europe are 
consoled under the tyranny and usurpation of Napoleon, by 
the greatness of the usurper ; but what can comfort the 



Federal party, the whole embodied virtue and talents of 
the union, for the extinction of their salutary influence and 
consequence in the state, by your father's weakness — what 
soothe the sadness, or alleviate the disgrace of America, 
if she should be ultimately made a Fief of France, by 
such men as a Jefferson, a Madison, a William Duane, and 
the Hon. John Quincy Adams. In such a state, what 
would there be to alleviate the anguish or assuage the 
indignation of the real patriotic American, who exults in 
the independence of his country ? Nothing. Even now 
what is there to support us under the present state of 
public degeneracy and abjection, but the disgraceful and 
mortifying truth, that a more humiliated condition is no 
longer possible. 

It is not because I entertain any great apprehension of 
your strength, but because I fear the destructive efficiency 
of your weakness, that I bestow my time upon this humble 
attempt to draw the public eye upon your conduct. It is 
not that I apprehend any thing from your powers as an agent^ 
but that I clearly discern your mischievous potency as an 
instrument. It is not that I greatly rate any aid you can 
impart to, or any credit you can reflect, upon the noxious 
party you have espoused, but that I lament th.Q scandal 
which your shameful defection has brought upon the good 
pne you have abandoned. It is not that I think you have 
added much talent, virtue, or knowledge to the jacobin 
party which you have embraced, but that you rise up a 
standing proof that the very sort of men, and those very 
principles, which it was the glory of the Federalists to have 
opposed^ have been all along treacherously and hypocriti- 
cally lurking in your person, in that august and venerable 
body. No Sir — It is because I am taught by manifold 
experience, that very mean talents, when absolved from the 
shame of mankind, and the fear of God, can destroy more 
than the highest wisdom and excellence can create, and that 
the purposes which brilliant talents have for years failed 



to accomplish by direct means, have frequently been in one 
month effected by the apostacy of a dunce. Do not mis- 
take me here Sir ; I mean nothing more than to establish 
a principle, from which to argue a fortiori. Though I 
consider you as considerably removed by nature, from that 
quality of intellect to which j^ou aspire, either as a scholar or 
statesman, you are also very far from a dunce, and, accord- 
ing to the play of the present day's politics, much farther 
from a fool. From your works and your conduct I con- 
sider you as standing in that rank of genius, which in lite- 
rature enables you to propogate a false and mischievous 
taste and in politics qualifies you to increase the evils of 
the day, but not to add an iota to the happiness of mankind 
— Like a Ricochet shot in the art of war, which is rendered 
more effectually mischievous and destructive by being only 
half charged with gunpowder. 

Fortune, Sir, is often at variance with reason, and from 
an unaccountable perversity, takes a pleasure in exalting 
and dignifying what nature has neglected — Lodi will be 
emblazoned in history, by its lying accidentally in the 
march of Napoleon — and Trafalgar, a place of no ac- 
count, is immortalized by an accidental connection with the 
name of Nelson — But Lodi still remains, in fact, but an 
obscure village, and Trafalgar only a poor unimportant 
bay ; and so they will remain intrinsically forever. Be 
assured, Sir, that renown which is not gained by intrinsic 
excellence or greatness above the vulgar level, tho' it may 
impose for a time upon the credulous multitude, only 
lowers the possessor in the eyes of men of sense, and is 
ever held in scorn by the proud and generous soul. Step 
down then, my good Sir, from your stilts ! — inspect your- 
self in every point of your qualifications, in every class of^ 
your pretensions ! — adopt a salutary humility — " assume a 
" virtue tho"^ you have it not J'"' Do not wait to be despoiled of. 
your borrowed plumes ! — Remember in time, that when 
that virtuous body of men, whom you have perfidiously 



deserted, to league with its enemies and the worst men 
in the land, shall have plucked from you the gaudy fea- 
thers in which their fond partiaUty had bedecked you, you 
will stand, in the world's eye, nothing better than a mere un- 
accomodated being, shivering in the nakedness of a very 
humble nature. At the least, give some solid foundation, 
some substantial reasons, fcv your tergiversation ! — Furnish 
your partial friends with some rational pretext for your con- 
duct ! — lay down some decent grounds, which their inge- 
nuity, supplying the deficiency of yours, may torture into 
an excuse for you, and do not leave them so entirely in the 
lurch, as you have in your letter to Mr. Otis, nor put them 
to the disagreeable alternative of coiifessing their weak 
credulity in yourpretences, or of becoming accessaries, after 
the fact, in the perpetration of a work, in which apostacy, 
and worse than apostacy, are vainly attempted to be bolster- 
ed up with purposed error, deliberate imposition, and gross 
misrepresentation. The characters of the persons, Sir, 
whose cause you now espouse, are written in a strong and 
legible black letter, in the records of your f^imily. Your 
father was among the first and most animated antagonists 
of French principles, French politics, French corruption, 
and the least introduction or intermixture of them with the 
affairs of this country. In the first part of his administration 
he followed the example of the glorious Washington, Vvdiom 
he succeeded — In the last, he was, without intending it, 
the prototype of President Jefferson, who succeeded Jii?)}, 
His politics seem, like Mahomet's coffin, to iiave been suspen- 
ded between those two attractions. He did not, it is true, at 
the worst time, suffer, as his successor has done, tiibute to be 
extorted from him by fear ; but, under some uniiccount- 
able influence, he did, most ingloriously for this country, send 
Ambassadors to France to sue for mtrcy, after he had pub- 
licly declared that he would never do so ; in this last act dis- 
crediting his former conduct, and crouching; to the iiisokiue 
Qf the Regicides. It affords, indeed Sh- i\. dees, an ad- 



8 

mirable illustration of the qualities of your heart and un- 
derstanding, that you have selected for your imitation that 
last part of your father's conduct, which taiTiishes the 
lustre of his early life, and precipitately plunge out of the 
paths he had beaten for you, in his worthier days, to walk 
in the footsteps of his political dotage and imbecility. Oh ! 
what a glorious sight it must b /for the family of Adams, to 
see the son, J. Q. Adams, meretriciously melting into the 
polluting arms of the father's worst enemy and foulest ca- 
lumniator, Jefferson, the friend and patron of Callender, 
the procurer and rewarder of that vile work, "The Pros- 
" pect before Us," in which President Adams is stigmatized 
as " a hoary Traitor," 

Not less unnatural to you is the cause you have espous- 
ed, than the persons with whom you have leagued. I 
hope, for the honour of our species, that you are not so fully 
acquainted, as Federalists in general are, with the full bulk 
of its turpitude : — But that you are in some degree aware 
of it, is evident from the, vain efforts, the struggles and 
plunges that you make to evade and apologize. Without 
knowing it, you plead g'lilty for yourself and your cause in 
every page ; by your solicitude to avoid suspicion, you 
$hew that you are conscious your motives deserve to be 
suspected ; and by your having recourse to palpable mis- 
representation of facts, and to a shameful suppression of 
jtruth, you virtually confess your cause to be untenable. 

Young as you are, Mr. Adams, you cannot but rem'em* 
ber the time when the bare suspicion of falshood, or the 
slightest taint of indiscretion, would have incurably blasted 
the character of a gentleman ; when the very thought of 
being suspected of any mean or immoral purpose passing 
transiently through the mind, brought a kind of punish- 
ment along with it, and the erratic guilt of the imagina- 
tion, though unperpetrated^ was detected by a blush. But 
now it is otherwise, and many aspire to the character of 
men of honour, from whose conduct every lineament of the 
man of worth and the gentleman is effaced. 



9 



It is my firm persuasion, Sir, that of the evils which the 
French revolution has brought into the world, the over- 
throw of established governments, the dissolution of all 
order, the introduction of general misrule, the destruction 
of property, perhaps the very massacres that ensued from 
that event, are by no means the worst in their ultimate con- 
sequences to mankind. No Sir — The breach which has 
been made in the moral habits and feelings of society is 
by far a worse, because a more general and permanent evil, 
than any of those. So entirely have these been subverted, 
so rapidly yet insensibly have men glided down into a 
state of comparative pollution, that if one going back and 
taking his station at a distance of only twenty years, were 
to examine the morals, manners and characters of man- 
kind then^ by comparison vrith those of the day that is now 
passing over us, he would be apt to conclude that there is 
a radical change in the very structure of the mind of man, 
and in the composition and complcxional qualities of the 
human race, and the creature called " civilized being" 
now, is by no means the same as that called " civilized be- 
ing" formerly. Everj^ good man must execrate the ori- 
ginal contrivers of that revolution ; but no man can, with 
any regard to truth, withhold from them the praise, such 
as it is, of having been most ingenious masters in the sci- 
ence of destruction. They went to work, not for a tem- 
porary, limited ruin, but for a permanent and universal de- 
struction. They did not content themselves with razing 
the whole fabric of establishment to the ground, but they 
decreed to annihilate the very materials of which it was 
composed, and to destroy, if possible, the very elements 
that held the moral world together. Religion, the cement 
which bound up the whole, they systematically and too suc- 
cessfully attacked ; with religion, the established system of 
morals fell into decay ; manners, which were of little less 
consequence, declined with co-ordinate rapidity ; so tha^ 
all the more refined sentiments, feelings and habitudes, 

B 



10 

which grow out of these, and which regulated human coH- 
duct, and erected a court of controul in the bosom, where 
honour and integrity presided, and anticipating shame pre- 
ckided the interference of justice, are now almost totally 
extinguished in the commerce of the world, or at least bum 
so faintly, that like an expiring w^ick, just glimmering in the 
socket, they emit light barely sufficient to shew that such 
things have been, but are not, and to display to more gloomy 
and horrible effect, the moral ruin that surrounds us- 
Men who, twenty years ago, from the necessity of their 
station in society, and from a wholesome fear of God, and 
shame of man, would have " felt a stain like a wound," and 
disdained to purchase an empire by the violation of truth, 
by a breach of their honour, by a base or even dubious act, 
now shamelessly stand forth, the public advocates of im- 
probity, the misleaders of their fellow citizens, the insidious 
enemies of their country ; careless by what base means they 
attain their ends, regardless of truth, scarcely condescending 
to affect the semblance of it, and only solicitous to 
manifest their zeal in the cause of wickedness, and to 
display their ingenuity in maintaining flagitious paradoxes, 
I wish I could stop here, bat I cannot with a due regard 
tc the circumstantial truth which is owing to this impor- 
tant subject. I know that at all periods of time there have 
been men but too much disposed to do the work of turpi- 
tude when tempted to it by a profitable purpose ; but shame 
and remorse generally followed the crime, and the fear of 
detection afterwards prevented the repetition of it. But now, 
Sir, it is to be feared, that all the moral distinctions, are 
so obliterated from the heart, all the meres and boundaries 
with which the wisdom and virtue of successive genera- 
tions had marked out the various qualities, classes and 
degrees of human conduct, are so broken down that few 
spare to do evil from an apprehension of the reproach of the 
world, and that many of those who do ill, have no distinct 
sense of their criminality. It is greatly to be feared, that 



11 

• 

deception, falshood, calumny and corruption, have expanded 
into such general use, that they are become fashionable, 
and now meet no corrective from shame ; and that evil- 
doers are so multiplied, that, like the miserable wretches of 
the Alps, who are covered all over with loathsome wens, 
each keeps the other in countenance, till the natural taste of 
the whole mass being corrupted, they all conform to their 
diseased condition, and the idea of perfect beauty is at last 
annexed to the most disgustful deformity, (b) 

Sad mortifying picture of the times ! Can it be correct ? 
Is it not too highly coloured ? Does not the painter de- 
generate into the caricaturist ? No — nothing of the kind. 
Let the matter be examined, let it be put to the test ! 
The potrait. Sir, to be sure, is very strong, and the lines 
harsh and uncouth. 

*' But if the picture be not fainter, 

" Arraign yourself, and not the painter." 

At present. Sir, I have nothing to do with the weakness, 
incorrectness, and absurdities of your style. Those belong 
to criticism, and that branch of literature of which, by the 
COURTESY, you are called professor — Rhetoric. As an 
American, however, I cannot but deplore the public taste 
that can digest such bombast, and even relish, as I am told 
they do, your composition, which (I attest all scholars and 
men of nice literary judgment) may, as a specimen of emp- 
ty and inflated bombast, be put in reputable competition 
with the rankest mock sublime in " Tom Thumb," or 
" Chrononhotonthologos." My business now. Sir, is with 
your political character, as it lies expanded to broad sun- 
shine, in that notable production, your " letter to Mr, 
Otis:' 

You set out with a remonstrance against Mr. Pickering, 
for having uttered, for the information of his constituents, a 
public censure upon the impolicy of the Embargo, and 
you impeach that gentleman of having made an unocnsti- 

{b.) This is actually the case with the Goitres. 



12 

• 

tutional appeal from the decisions of Congress, to the 
people of Massachusetts. You say that " it ought not to 
" have been predicated under the stimulus of a one-sided 
" representation^ far less upon the impulse of conjectures 
^^ aud suspicions.'^'' You then glance at an unfairness in 
his writing his letter without informing you of it; and 
animadvert upon the bad tendency of such " Antagonizing 
Appeals?^ You then descant, with your accustomed inge- 
nuity, upon the conduct which associates in any public charge 
ought to observe to each other — and thence you take a 
flight to the Ycry g-alaxy of your eloquence, and no less sa- 
gaciously than sublimely say, that " open hearted imputa- 
'' tion of honest intentions^ is the only adamant^ at once at- 
" tractive and impenetrable^ that can bear^ unshattered^ all 
'' the thunder of foreign hostility^"* To so much of this 
effusion as is intelligible, professing at the same time to ad- 
mire all that is not, I will give you a plain answer, in a 
few plain words. It was reserved, I believe, for the advo- 
cate of a democratic despotism, to call in question, in a 
country supposed to be free, the right of any citizen to 
discuss the acts of his governors. The moment that right 
is successfully invaded, the liberties of the people are ex- 
tinct J the moment it is attacked or impeached, their in- 
dependence is endangered. In Great Britain, a govern- 
ment which no American will consider so free as his own, 
or which, to speak more to the purpose, is a monarchy, the 
members of both houses of parliament have the right to 
protest publicly against any law, and they constantly ex- 
ercise that right, by protesting against such as they think 
noxious, by putting their protests upon record, and by- 
circulating them, through the medium of the press, about 
the country. 

And shall Mr. John Quincy Adams dare to im- 
peach this right in America ? Or shall he be allow- 
ed, uncontradicted or with impunity, to assert that an 
An^erican Senator, differing from his associate, and opposing 



13 

him in an important public concern, shall not be permit- 
ted to come forward to his country and constituents, in 
order to satisfy them respecting the motives of his con- 
duct ? And is it, Mr. John Quincy Adams, is it indeed 
come to this with America ? and does the snake of des- 
potism already shake its rattles so boldly ? Such kind 
of concealments, as you recommend to Mr. Pickering, 
may well be understood to be convenient for Mr. 
Adams, and certainly suitable to his new cause, and conge- 
nial to his new associates. To Mr. Pickering, and such 
men as Mr. Pickering, candour, or as Lord Bacon terms 
it, in the motto, " clear and round dealing ^'^ is the one thing 
needful. Openness is to him. Sir, what concealment is to 
you and your democratic JefTersonian associates, the sa- 
fest, the only refuge. Indeed I am disposed to think 
that your political logic is pretty nearly on a level with 
your academic rhetoric, and that your language, with its 
wild-goose flight of tropes, metaphors, and illustrations, is 
as well adapted to z/owr kind of arguments, as the cuts in 
a key are to the wards of a lock. 

Mr. Pickering may defy any man to establish the least 
substantial objection to his letter, unless indeed wx ex- 
cept the very* important one of its offending the 
delicate feelings of Mr. John Quincey Adams, feelings 

which Mr. Pickering does not experience. " Let the 

galled Jade wince, his honest withers are unwrung." 

Such, as I have described, is the right of every American 
citizen, even where the aet of Congress which he chuses 
to discuss before the public has gone through the custo- 
mary forms, been under consideration the customary 
time, been debated with the gravity and deliberation due 
to important questions, and carried thro' the house with that 
decency and respect for the opinions of legislators and 
of the public M'hich ought to be maintained in the dis- 
cussions of a great national legislative council. You, Sir, 
very emphatically say, that it was discussed ia the Senate, 



14 



and therc.decided. Bat is that, Sir, essentially true- — true 
in spirit as in letter ? No Sir — with your patriotic and 
honest assistance it was hurried through the Senate out 
of complaisance to the will of Mr. Jefftrson ; — and in obe- 
dience to executive influence, a measure which has giv- 
en the heaviest blow to the prosperity of this country 
that despotism itself could have dared to inflict, was, in so ve- 
ry .short a time as four hours., carried through the Senate, 
and instead of your seeing that it received that discussion 
of which you boast, you exerted all your eloquence, and 
what was of much greater weight, you gave your vote., 
to precipitate it to a conclusion, and to shut out delibe 
ration. This you did Sir, while your worthy colleague, 
whom you have dared to reprove, and some other ho- 
nest members of the same description, endeavoured to .obtain 
a sufficient time for consideration and discussion :— and in 
contesting this just and constitutional proposal, you Sir, and 
men who, like you, were disposed to prostrate the dignity 
of the Senate at the feet of executive influence, w^as that 
poor four hours w^asted, which was given, as you say, to 
discussion, and, with a rashness which it is to be hoped 
you will be made to remember with sorrow, a measure, 
fraught with a thousand evils and calamities, was carried 
off at a full gallop through the house. Silence on the 
subject of discussion. Sir, would become you much better 
than Mr. Pickering-., and you would have observed it, if 
you had the modesty or the skill to know yourself. 

As to your " st'iraulus^'^ your " one sided representa- 
tions^^ your " impulse of conjectures and suspicions i^'' your 
*' antagonizing appeals^"* " adamant., attractive^ impene- 
trable^ unshattered., thunder^!'' &:c. &c. they are so far out 
of the reach of my comprehension, that with the awe 
which I always feel when I approach great men and 
great matters, I am fain to make my best bow to them, 
and to retire in silence. 

Taking the rest of your letter in the lump, your objects 
in it seem to be reducible to the following heads* 



15 



First, to justify the Embargo. 

Secondly, to vindicate the conduct of France. 

Thirdly, to influence the country against Great Bri- 
tain. 

It is a long time, Sir, since I have found any man act 
the part of an American in politics. The generous feeling 
for country which once filled the bosoms of our fellow 
citizens seems to have been extinguished in the flames 
which have reached us from Europe. The most fatal ene- 
my to local patriotism is the introduction of a new doctrine, 
if that doctrine be of sufficient force and interest to kin- 
dle enthusiasm in the human bosom. The doctrines 
broached in the French Revolution have extinguished lo- 
cal patriotism in every part of the European world, ex- 
cept Britain, where a sense of their imminent national 
danger has smothered political sectarism. The same doc- 
trines have nearly annihilated local patriotism hei-e. 
The dogmas of the reformation formerly produced the ve- 
ry same effect, though in a mitigated degree. That impor- 
tant event, by dividing the people of every country against 
each other about religious doctrines, killed their local pat- 
riotism. The population of France shared its affections 
with England, and that of England with France. The 
Roman Catholics of the British Islands v/ithdrew their 
attachment from their fellow subjects at home, and gave 
then-, for their doctrine, to the Catholics of France ; while 
the Hugonots or Protestants of France, looked with af- 
fection to the people of England, and abhorred their 
persecuting countrymen at home. This continued, though 
with a constant diminution of force, till that and every 
other consideration was ingulphed and lost in the revo- 
lution of France, with which a doctrine of a new and 
infinitely more agitating and potent nature arose to di- 
vide mankind. No sooner did jacobinism raise its head, 
and establishment and property oppose its ravages, than 
the needy, the profligate, and the ignorant, all over the 



16 



earth, all men of infamous characters and desperate for- 
tunes, all the Deists and Atheists, all men hopeless of re- 
lief from the effects of their own vices, but in the ca«ual 
events of tumult,and who thought with the murderers in 
Macbeth. 

" I am one, my liege, 

" The hard blows and buffets of the world 

" Have so incens'd, that I am reckless what 

" I do, to spite the world." 

" And I another, 

" So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune, 

" That I would set my life on any chance 

" To mend it, or be rid on't." — — 

In a word, all whom necessity had rendered adven- 
turous and profligate habits insensible to virtue and 
to shame, took the side of France and Jacobinism. — 
To these were added others of a different descrip- 
tion ; men who, like your newly adopted friend Mr. 
Jefferson, had just learning enough to make them 
presumptuous, but not enough to make them wise ; 
who, by sipping from the surface of science, had 
bloated themselves with the belief that they were 
philosophers, and compounded with themselves for 
their ignorance of any thing, by a squeamish affecta- 
tion of doubt and scepticism in every thing, and who 
aspired to the worst purposes of the most ambitious 
men, without possessing one spark of the spirit of 
true ambition to fire their souls. — All these, I sayj^ 
raliiedroundthe standard of jacobinism, and of course 
became, in heart and soul, Frenchmen. On the other 
hand, there rose in array against the pestilence, all the 
men of worth, property, knowledge, virtue and hon- 
our, in every country. They rallied round anti-jaco- 
binism, and as England was the chief champion of 
that principle, they were partial to her. 



17 

In this country the coiiflagration spread wider, 
and raged with greater violence than in Europe ; 
the independence of every individual left him to 
chuse for himself, and the whole country, divided 
against itself, ranged under the two doctrines with 
their champion nations. The jacobins loving France 
and Frenchm.en more than America, or Americans ; 
the anti-jacobins clinging to the policy of England, 
and abhorring those of their fellow citizens who 
were polluted with French principles. 

This conflict of the passions of the people was 
laid hold of by interested men, and converted 
to an instrument of ambition. .Mr. Jefferson was 
the friend and associate of tlie original architects of 
this ruin, and at his house, while he was the am- 
bassador of this country at Paris, that honest set of 
men, the leaders of the jacobin club, constantly met» 
Here we have a clue to the views and character of 
the slavish parasite of France, and the implacable, 
malignant enemy of Britain. 

Mr. Jefferson returned to his country inoculated 
with that loathsome pestilence, and filled with dark 
designs for the propagation of his favorite princi- 
ples, and the gratification of his own perverted am- 
bition. As the specious doctrines of his sect were 
well calculated to impose upon the multitude, he 
soon grew into popularity, and from popularity into 
power. A vast majority of the country went along 
with him, adopted his opinions, circulated his prin- 
ciples, supported his dogmas, and, in the ei^d, con- 
verted independent America, if not into a province 
of France, at least into a Frenchified province. 



18 

And now, Sir, nothing is viewed, nothing argued, 
nothing discussed, either in senate, cabinet, or pub- 
lic prints, as an American question, but all as 
French or English. In proportion asNapoleon suc- 
ceeds in bruising the head of liberty in Europe, the 
fiilse sons of liberty here desert her. It is the worst 
vice of the worst of mankind to admire, to venerate, 
and do homage to successful villainy. Every day 
Napoleon grows more and more exalted in the eyes 
of the base and unworthy of this country, and men 
who, ten years ago, read, with eyes glistening with 
transport, every report of his fall, and greedily look- 
ed through the columns of the newspapers for an 
account of his assassination, and who would, with all 
the pleasure they are capable of enjoying, have done 
the office of hangman at his execution, now push 
forward as candidates for the glory of acting the part 
of chief priest at his apotheosis. You, Sir, are of this 
number ; I will prove it upon the face of your let- 
ter; I will demonstrate that in your zeal for Napo- 
leon you have deserted the flag of your country. 
Poor, devoted bird ! you give out your feelings 
too intelligibly to be mistaken ; with all your 
clamour you demonstrate that you feel the fascina- 
tion grow more and more irresistible as you ap- 
proach the jaws of the monster. Had Talleyrand 
employed some of the reprobate Irish traitors, who 
croud Paris, to write a pamphlet for his purpose, in 
order to be circulated in America, the likelihood is 
that, only with the exception of its being much 
better written, it would \>t precisely the same as 



19 

your letter to Mr. Otis. For I aver that there 
is not a thought in your publication which has not 
wearied the readers of all the papers in Napoleon's 
interest in this country. You take care to disclaim 
being the apologist of France. Do you know so 
little of the world, Sir, as not to see that such a 
gratuitous disclaimer is a proof of your being that 
which you disclaim. " /¥/io dispraised Htrcides ?'^ 
\\^as the question, by way of reply, of a sagacious 
man to one who undertook to defend that hero. 
So I ask you, Sir, who is he that accused Mr. J. Q. 
Adams of being the advocate or apologist of 
France, that he should think it necessary to come 
forth with his great, and mighty / to defend him- 
self ? Who I say is he? Why, who but Mr. J. Q. 
Adams himself ; who, taking his cue from that alarm- 
ing prompter conscience, runs forward on the 
stage and falls fencing with the shadow created by 
his own guilt. 

But this is not all ; your suppression of every 
truth that goes to criminate France, your very un- 
fair and exaggerated account of the aggressions of 
England, your wretched sophistry about the de- 
cree of Napoleon and the British orders of council, 
shew you to be the mere, mere hacknied advocate 
of France, 

I shall not make my argument the worse, and I 
shall make my cause far more creditable, by taking 
up the matter, not as you have done, not as a candi- 
date for the smiles of a party, much less for the fa- 
vour of any European despot, but as an American 
citizen, devoted to his country, anxious for her h«- 



20 

noiir and welfare, but almost despairing of her safe- 
ty and independence. I say, Sir, that the aggres- 
sions of England have been great, and such as, if 
they were solitary aggressions, and England alone 
Vvcre the offender, the government of America 
would be highly criminal in not having resented long 
ago. But, Sir, while we have the infinitely greater 
aggressions of France staring us impudently in the 
face, unrevenged, unattoned for even by a slight 
apology, and studiously unnoticed, I am at a loss 
for words to express my astonishment at the mor- 
bid strength of that man's nerves, who can come for- 
ward, bare his face before the community, and pour 
forth invective against the aggressions of Britain. 

A more discreditable tissue of misrepresentation 
was never offered to the world, under the false garb 
of truth, than your observations on Mr. Pickering's 
omission of the British orders of the 11th November, 
1807 ; and your accusing him of omitting to mention 
those orders, really locks as if )^ou wished to hold a 
light to your own insincerity, or, as Rousseau before 
you published the mad display of his vices, you were 
desirous to call the whole country to witness with 
what an utter disregard of decency, what a triumph 
over candour, what a contempt for the opinion of the 
world, and what a boastful effrontery, you could o- 
rait all ttiQ preceding and all the subsequent aggres- 
sions of France ; with what patriotic sang-froid you 
coiiki announce, that every insult and injury offered 
by France ought, as of right, to be endured by Ame- 
rica — with what peevish irascibility we were to deal 
with England. So very intent are you upon justi- 



21 



fying every hostile act to Britain ; so completely is 
the reason, which nature has lent you, been con- 
founded by your malice to Mr. Pickering, that, while 
you own (p. 9) that the orders of the 1 1th Novem- 
ber were not officially communicated with the Pre- 
sident's message, you justify Congress in proceed- 
ing to legislate upon the grounds of those, merely 
on the authority of the London and Liverpool pa- 
pers, and upon rumours then in circulation. Here, 
Sir, is your even-handed justice; you censure Mr. 
Pickering for not adverting, in his strictures upon 
the embargo law, to the British documents of 1st 
November, which had not been before the makers of 
that law, while you yourself have purposely omitted 
the prior documents, because they were French, up- 
on which those of the 1 1th November were founded. 

Can it be questioned whether, in your letter, you 
act the part of the patriot and statesman investigat- 
ing truth for the benefit of the people of America, 
or that of the sophistical advocate of France, when 
you are seen suppressing the most material facts 
because they go to open the eyes of the country to 
the evil designs of France. You speak of the Bri- 
tish orders of November, 1807, as if nothing oifen- 
sive had followed them on the part of Napoleon. 

If your intentions were not deliberately to deceive, 
you would have stated the whole truth when you 
stated any part of it ; you would have stated that 
the British orders of the 11th November, were made 
under the pressure of urgent necessity, and when 
Britain was in a state of extraordinary peril, and un- 
der the compulsion of th.Q imperial decree of the 



2^ 

21st November, 1806. But what do you do ? aware 
that your misrepresentation will be detected, and can- 
not carry you through ; aware that the grounds you 
took would fail to vindicate your friend Napoleon's 
decree, you go back for a justification of him to a 
time before he had existence, and endeavour to fix 
the crime of his tyrannical decree of blockade upon 
a British law made in 1 756. This, Sir, manifests the 
unfairness of your intentions, and shews that your 
object is to favour France by inflaming our fellow- 
citizens against Great-Britain. Do you recollect 
Sir, that by the terms of the Revolution settlement 
with England, we acquiesced in every thing belong- 
ing to her established maritime laws which were 
not specifically altered by treaty with her. If the 
law of 1756 were oppressive or injurious to us, that 
was our proper time to insist upon a repeal or modi- 
fication of it. Like every other acquisition of con- 
quest, it became the property of Britain by her 
power, and has remained hers by prescription. The 
introduction of it, therefore, into your letter was ir- 
relevant, and could answer no other purpose but to 
cover your shameful suppression of the aggressions 
of France, or at least to justify them. 

Let the world judge between you and me. Sir. 
On the 21st November, 1806, the Emperor of France 
puts the British islands into a state of blockade ; 
that is to say, he undertakes to shut up her ports with- 
out ships J nay, while his own were so blockaded 
by the British fleets that his vessels of war could 
not sail out but by stealth and stratagem. By this 
decree not only all British property under neutral 



25 

flags, and in neutral bottoms, but all goods manu- 
factured in the British territories, though neutr?.! pro- 
perty, were seizable, and were in every instance seiz- 
ed and confiscated. On the 18th September 1807, 
nearly two months before the British orders were 
issued, our Ambassador at Paris wrote to Regnier, 
the Procureur General of the Council of Prizes, to 
put the question, whether that decree would be put 
in execution to that extent against America. To 
which Regnier gives him the following laconic an- 
swer: ^' His Majesty notifies it to me, that since hehas 
" not thought proper to express any exception in his 
*' decree, there is no ground to make any in the ex- 
** ecution, with respect to any thing wiiatsoever." 
Sic voio, Sic jubeo, says Napoleon, I have once de- 
creed it, and it must remain so. At the same time 
Mr. Armstrong put another question to Regnier, viz. 
"Whether French armed vessels - might possess 
*' themselves of neutral vessels going to or fromEng- 
" land, although they have no English merchandise 
*' on board." To which Regnier returns for answer: 
*' His Majesty has not decided the question 
'* whether French armed vessels may possess them- 
** selves of neutral vessels going to or from Eng- 
" land, though they have no English merchandize 
^' on board." 

Here the contemptuous insult of Napoleon is 
branded on the forehead of our government. He 
is not at leisure to say whether it is his will, or not, 
to seize American vessels having no British goods 
on board ; but till he has, they must be captured. 



24 

On the 24<h September Mr. Armstrong writes to 
Char-ipagny, the nriinister of foreign relations, the 
following letter : 

Paris, Septcjnber 24, 1807. 
Sir, , 

I have this moment learned that a nev/ and extentled con- 
structian, liiglily injurio-js to the commerce of the United States, 
was about to be given to the imperial deci-ee of the 21st of Nov. 
last. It is therefore incumbent upon me to ask from yeur excel- 
lency an explanation of his majesty's views in relation to this sub- 
ject, and particularly whether it be his majesty's intention, in any 
degree, to infract the obligations of the treaty now subsisting be- 
tween the United States and the French empire ? 
I pray your excellency, kc. &c. Sec. 
(Signed) ' JOHN ARMSTRONG.' 

J-Jis Excellency the ^'linistcr 
ofF&i'eign RelatiGns. 

To which Champagiiy returns an answer in the 
following words, but not till the 7th October. 

Fontmnbleau^ Oct. 7, 18or. 
Sir, 

You did me the honour on the 24ii of September, to request me 
to send you some explanations as to the execution of the decree of 
blockade of the Bridsh islands, as to vessels of tjie United States. 

The provisions of all the regulations and treaties relative to a 
state of blockade, have appeared applicable to the existing circum- 
stance, audit results from the explanations which have been ad- 
dressed to me by the imT>erial procureur general of the council of 
prizes, that his majesty has considered every neutral vessel, going 
from English ports, with cargoes of English merchandize, or of 
English origin, as lawfully seizable by French armed vessels. 

The decree of blockade has been now issued eleven months. 
The principal powers of Europe, far from protesting against its 
previsions, have adopted them. They have perceived that its ex- 
ecuiio'ii ?nust be corajdete^ to reitder it wore effectual, and it has 
seemed easy to reconcile these measures with the observance of 
treaties, especially at a time when the infractions, by England, of 



25 



the rights of all maritime powers, render their interests common, 
and tend to unite them in support of the same cause. 
Accept, &:c. &c. 
(Signed) CHAMPAGNY. 

His Excellency General ^mstrong^ 
Mm. Plen. of the United States. 

In a subsequent letter to Mr. Madison, Mr. 
Armstrong (even the Frenchified Mr. Armstrong 
himself) complains of the unfriendly decision of 
the Council of Prizes, in the case of the Horizon. 
Sir, is it not astonishing?- --Now, if you had a drop 
of blood at the service of modesty, or shame in the 
utmost recesses of your heart, must it not find its 
way to your cheek at this detection of your sup- 
pression of evidence ? 

You hide all this, in order to criminate the British 
orders which arose out of it. As an American why 
should you wish to mark the orders of Britain as cri- 
minal, and let those of France which were worse 
and anterior pass unnoticed ? V/hat do your obser- 
vations amount to ? Why this---England, who is 
lighting for existence, and standing in a most peril- 
ous situation, is to suffer France, who is fighting for 
conquest and universal empire, and who tramples on 
the world, to stop every vessel going to the British 
territories, but ought not, in return., to stop those 
going to France.— -This is the even-handed justice 
which the Great Moral Meter of America would 
measure out to France and England. Now give me 
leave to say. Sir, that, whether you thought this a suf- 
ficient justification of the British orders or .»£, and 
even though you had conceived that out of compli- 
ment to Mr. Jefferson, Duane and yourself, the British 



26 

government ought to let France ruin her, you were 
bound to state it in your letter. 

But what shall be said of your farrago ofexclu- 
fiive invective against Britain when you are found 
passing over Napoleon's decreee of the 17th De- 
cember, issued from Milan to the following ef- 
ll^ct. 

Ariiclc 1 . Everj' ship to whatever nation it maj- belong, that shall 
have submitted to be searched by an English ship, or to a voyage 
to England, or that shall have paid any tax whatsoever to the 
English government, is thereby, and for that alone,declaredtobe 
denationalized, to have forfeited the protection of its king, and to 
have become English property. 

Article 2. Whether the ships thus denationalized by the arbi- 
trary measures of the English government, enter into our ports or 
those of our allies, or whether they fall into the hands of our ships 
of war, orofcurprivateers, they are declared to be good and lawful 
prizes. 

Article S. the British islands are declared to be in a state of 
blockade, both by sea and land. Every ship, of whatever nation, 
or whatsoever the nature of its cargo may be, that sails from 
the ports of England, or those of the English colonies, and of the 
countries occupied by English troops, and proceeding to England, 
or to English colonies, or to countries occupied by English troops, 
is good and lawful prize, as contrary to the present decree ; and 
may be captured by our ships of war or our privateers, and ad- 
judged to the captor. 

That you may not cunningly sneak out of this 
difficulty, into which you have so unfairly and bom- 
bastically strutted, I will make a few observations 
on the eifect of this decree. 

An American vessel, with a rich cargo, is met 
at sea by a British squadron. They insist on 
searching her. It is obvious that resistance on her 
part is impossible, they let her pass without fur- 
ther molest^ition. Then what says Napoleon the 



' ■ ■ 27 

clios^n friend of America? why this; for being 
searched by the British, which she could not help, 
this vessel is to be confiscated, and made what he 
contumaciously and falsely calls *' Lawful Prize." 
That is to say, America is to be punished for the 
crime of England, and you Sir, in the same breath, 
denounce the injustice of Britain for searching 
and letting the vessel pass, and plead the cause 
of Napoleon who confiscates her, for having been 
so outraged, without having the common justice, 
or indeed the common sense, to reflect that, the 
more grievous, oppressive and unjustifiable you 
shew the searching of the ship by the British to 
be, the greater you make the turpitude, and the 
more flagrant and outrageous the injustice of France 
in seizing her for it. 

Nor was this decree an empty unproductive 
menace. It has been executed, you know that it 
has, with a rigour far ex ceding the letter of it. 
You know that not only American ships have beei) 
seized, but instantly robbed and destroyed. 
French national ships. Napoleon's frigates, have ta- 
ken several vessels at sea, and instead of sending 
them into port, there to await the trial and sen- 
tence of a regular tribunal, have plundered them of 
their cargoes, set fire to them, burned them down, 
and put the crews on board some other vessel to be 
landed in America, for which purpose one alone 
was spared from the flames, after she had been 
rifled of every thing about her. 

You had all this before you, Sir, when you 
wrote your mischievous letter. And yet, you 



28 



would, for your own sinister purposes, set the 
world in a blaze of indignation against Great Bri- 
tain, and plunge your country into a war with that 
nation, now struggling under the bloody gripe of 
France for the preservation of her existence, and 
for the last remains of the independence of mankind. 
Sir, this undue attachment to any one foreign coun- 
try cannot spring from any good motive. It is 
unnatural--- What said Washington on the subject 
of foreign nations ? "Neither love nor hate 

THEM." 

A man of sense will as soon believe that the pre- 
tended cosmopolite, Rousseau, loved the Caffiarian 
Hottentots, or the Gatawba Indians, as well as he 
did the French or Swiss, as that you, or any 
American, really love France or Napoleon. ---You 
may seem to do so. ---An advocate, when pleading 
at the bar, may rage, w^ep, laugh, cry, sneer, be ten- 
der or indignant, just as his client would ; but it 
would not come from his heart, his emotions 
Would spring from his palm, or his pocket, or his 
purpose. ---Every jacobin in the country, as I have 
already stated, is a friend, politically, to France and 
an enemy to England ; not for love of either, but 
for his purpose, for his doctrine, for his purse ; 
and in order to cover fictitious feelings, of which he 
knows he ought to be ashamed, he makes a parade 
of gratitude to France for her aid in the revolution. 

But you know better. Sir, your father has let you 
into that secret longago.--The authority of Wash- 
ington will never, I hope, want its full weight in this 
country, and upon it I venture to affirm, that the 



29 



idea of gratitude to France is mistakcij and pie- 
posterous. In his letter of the 16th Jan 1797, to 
our mhiister at Paris, he unfolds the whole truth res- 
pecting our obligations to France A copy of this 
letter is on record, having been transmittCitd to Con- 
gress, in a special message, on the 19th. of the same 
month. The object of France, and Washington 
proves in that letter that it was avowed by the King, 
was wholly selfish. That grea,t man shews that, at 
the time the King of France joined America, the in- 
dependence of America had been, not only declared, 
but established. That his Majesty choBe to consi- 
der America independent, ^' because''^ (fthese were 
the words of Louis) " his safiti/j the interest of his 
** people^ invariable policy^ ^dld above ajl, the secret 
' projects of the Court of Londo7i im|1feriously laid 
' him under the necessity." The secret projects 
lere referred to (says Washington) *^ ^i^ere those cf 
' reconciliation, on terms which mi gilt satisfy the 
^* United States, and produce re-union and coalition 
" for the purpose of falling upon Frarjce." France 
only wanted to put an end to the predcjminant power 
of England, and was guided exclusiyely by a view 
to her own interest, | 

Far from wishing the independence of America, 
Vergennes endeavoured to cajole Franklin and Jay 
into a consent to treat with Great Britain as colonists, 
and Franklin was disposed to do so, but Jay pe- 
remptorily refused to treat but as an independent 
nation. Nay, the French court sent over a special 
embassy to St. James's to urge that government 



not to consent to treat with tTie Americans but 
as colonists. But Jay, having intelligence of 
or suspecting it, sent over an agent to counteract the 
Frenchman, and the consequence was that the Bri- 
tish ininiisters agreed to treat with the " United 
States?' 

So much for gratitude to France for her ser- 
vices in the Rcvoiuticn. Now, Sir, let us take a 
reviewof her conduct to wards us since she murdered 
cur supposed benefactors Louis and Antoinette. 

Can you, Sir, have forgotten the attempt, during 
your father's adinsnistration, to bully us, to dra- 
goon us into compliance, to extort tribute from 
us ? Can }'ou have forgotten the attempt of Genet 
and the American agents of France, to raise a 
French army in the heart of this Country ? Can 
you forget that tlie French minister was convicted, 
by his own confession, of having tampered with 
our Secretaries of State and w^ith our governors, for 
the purpose of exciting a civil war among us ? 
Can you have forgotten the insulting letter of 
Tureau to the President, about the commerce of 
St. Domingo, to w^iich the latter bent like a bull- 
rush before a storm ? Can you have forgotten how 
our Ambassador, General Pinkney, when he went 
to France, to complain of the cruel oppressions of 
France, was spurned at, treated contemptuously 
and driven away, without being alloAved to speak ? 
Can you have forgotten the repetition of that treat- 
ment to our succeding Ambassadors, Pinckney, Mar- 
shall and Gerry or the insults and indignities offer- 
red to them. Do you not remember, that two of them 



31 



were sent away, and that in order to deride and 
humiliate them, they were desired to send in their 
names, age, stature, marks, complexions, &c. &c. 
as is customary with persons, of the lowest Lind ? 
Can you have forgotten that the third could not, 
for a long time, get his passports to come a- 
way ? Can the dust of Napoleon have so put 
out the eyes of your memory, that you forget 
how our mission was treated,- when it was sent 
(to our shame be it said) to release France from 
all claims of compensation for spoliations upon our 
citizens, though to the amount of upwards of twen- 
ty millions of dollars ? Can you have forgotten 
the rapine and spoliations committed on our ships, 
and which, though shamefully concealed, you knew 
of ? Can you so soon have forgotten that, not 
contented with insulting and oppressing us himself, 
Napoleon made his feeble vassal, Spain, trample 
upon our rights, and disgrace our country in the 
eyes of the world ? Or do you think that, if Spain 
had not been set on by Napoleon, she would have 
dared to stop the navigation of the Mississippi-, 
to invade our territory^ to carry av/ay our citizens bv 
force, and to rob them of their arms ? Has the 
trick which Napoleon put upon us in the purchase 
of Louisiana, and his selling us a territory with false 
boundaries escaped your memory ? Has the capture 
of our vessels, for entering ports blockaded by proc- 
lamation onhj^ passed you unnoticed ? Have you 
overlooked Mr. Randolph's expressions in the de- 
bate on the army bill ? Lest you should, I will re- 
peat them to you. They were uttered on the floor 



32 

6i corjgress, and were not contradicted by any one 
persoii belonging to the executive ; they were these : 
*' In the course of the session 1805--6, I had occa- 
" sioil to call at the office of the secretary of state ; 
" being on intimate terms with the secretary, I asked 



" about the state of foreign affairs, and what had 
*' been done. The reply was, that foreign nations 
*' trc^ated us without regard to honor or justice ; 
*' with respect to Spain, I was told and I have never 
'* h<'ard it denied, I will support it in every place and 
*' in every way, that France would not permit Spain 
^' t^ settle her differences xvith the United States ex- 
" Ciept money xvas paid^ which sub -rosx was to go to 
" p7^ance : tha.t she (France) wanted money, and we 
" inust give it or prepare to go to v/ar. We voted 
" inoney and pursued a tranquil policy. From that 
" (lay my ideas as to our foreign affairs, as to poli- 
" iics and politicians, suddenly underwent a change ; 
*' (a new light burst upon my mind. Hence what 
"is called a schism in the republican party." 

( Thus it appears, that, while you and your derao- 
mocratic friends swagger away and talk of war 
with England, you crouch to the earth and fawn 
like spaniels upon and lick the feet of Napoleon. 
''' Give me money," says the Corsican, " or you 
■' must fight me ;" and our President trembles and 
gives him the money. " My master (says Turreau) 
''has raised his voice in favour of the old false state 
*' claim of Beaumarchnis ; pay Beaumarchais or 
*' else ! ! !" And as the jackall trembles at the roar 
of the lion at the vqvj moment that he purveys for 
him our ma^naminious chief trembles and advises 



How is it that the minds of our fellow citizens 
are thus subdued? how is it that the terror of Na- 
poleon's name seems to have as potent an effect in 
America as in Europe. It will be bad policy (says 
a legislator of Jersey, Mr. Condit) to irritate 
France by an allusion to the injuries we have re- 
ceived from her. And is this language for an in- 
dependent American, for a legislator of this once 
bold and free people ?--** Down with England and 
up with France," says the valiant, the v»dse and 
generous John Quincey Adams. Great God ! that 
I should have lived to see the day when Americans, 
the descendants of the valiant Welch, English, 
Irish, Scotch, Hollanders and Germans, should be 
frightened into compliance with every demand, 
however insolent or unreasonable, of a French des= 
pot, the great foe of republics ; who, has never 
ceased to degrade and oppress us, and who having 
overturned his own country, and subjugated almost 
all Europe to his chains, now bullies this govern- 
ment and purposes to make it pass under his 
yoke. ' " 

I confess, Sir, that the importance of this subject 
demands that it should ber treated with a degree of 
gravity to v/hich your ludicrous composition is but 
too hostile, and with a share of respect to which its 
assosiation with your apostacy has hitherto deprived 
it in spite of every effort of ray mind to the contrary. 
I am now, however, come to a point in which levity 
would be imprudent as well as indecorous I there- 
fore propose to confer with you on level ground, and 
to treat you as if you were the statesman and the 

E 



lawjer, not only capable of conviction by fair argu- 
ment, but willing to be convinced ; and before I part 
with you I think I shall prove, if not to you, at least 
to the satisfaction of my other readers, that the em- 
bargo is unnecessary, and an evil, that it is un- 
constitutional, and that the Congress and president, 
in enacting it, have greatly exceeded their powers. 

You and the other advocates of that fatal measure 
justify it on the ridiculous and false pretext that it 
is intended to protect the property of our citizens 
from the rapacity of the belligerents. In the first 
place, Sir, I deny that that is true. If to protect the 
vessels and property of our citizens from capture 
were the object of this act, which its warmest advo- 
cates must allow to be oppressive and injurious, if 
not ruinous, why were its provisions urged beyond 
the strict line of necessity ? why have our honest 
and industrious farmers been prevented from con- 
veying their property by land to a market? why is 
there an embargo laid upon the confines of Canada ? 
can British men of war run up and lie in wait 
on the boundary line of Vermont, or British priva- 
teers hover upon the interior of New- York. Until 
you can dispose of these questions by an affirmative, 
you must give the point up. On the face of it it 
stands flatly contradicted by that one fact. 

But supposing that those really were the legitimate 
gf;ounds of the law, still I maintain that it ought not 
to have been enacted^ and that the passing of it was 
an act of violence upon the people^s rights, which no 
government, however despotic, has ever before ven- 
tered upon. What is it less, Sir, than assuming a 



, « 35 ' 

right to put the property of individuals iiito a slate 
of tutelage, and to reduce the free citizens of Amer- 
icato the humiliating incapacity of minors, lunatics, 
or nuisances ? what is it but telling the great com- 
mercial body of the country that they shall not, upon 
their own responsibility, go to market, because there 
is a great hazard attending it ? Risk is the great 
moving principle, the very life-blood of commerce ; 
calculation of that risk is the province of the mer- 
chant ; sagacity, and consequent success in it, his 
advantage : Of all this the embargo deprives and 
establishes a precedent to deprive him for ever. 
The goods shipped by the merchant are his own pro- 
perty ; to the disposal of them he, and he alone has 
a right, and of that right no legislature has a legal or 
constitutional power to deprive him, unless the exer» 
cise of it induces a great general evil ; not a dieore- 
tic or hypothetical evil, but one capable of demon - 
stration by facts. He may send them and his ships 
to any port, provided it be not the port of an enemy 
actually at war with his country, and he may give 
them to the people in that port as a free gift ofFerino-. 
To prevent him from doing so I aver to be a dead- 
ly blow at the rights of the citizen, and stab to the 
very vitals of national liberty. Pray, Sir, con- 
descend to hearken to the best authorities on this 
subject. Burlemaqui, c. 3. s. 15. lays it down, that 
" moral liberty is the right which nature gives to 
*' all mankind of disposing of their persons and pro- 
^^ perty, after the manner they judge most conso- 
*' nant to their happiness, on condition of their acting 
^^ within the limits of the laws of nature, and that 



36 



* they do not abuse it to the prejudice of other 
*' men.*" And archdeacon Paley, who cannot be 
suspected of bemg a latitudinarian in any principle, 
says, that ^' civil liberty is the not being restrained 
' ' by any law but what conduces in a greater degree 
*' to the public good.'' To these very respectable 
authorities, I may add that of a high British preroga- 
tive lord, the archbishop of York, who in a sermon 
preached 21st. February 1777, defined " civil oi' 
" legal liberty to be that which consists in a free- 
'' dom from all restraint, except such as established 
" law imposes for the good of the community." 
He who does hot admit this must be ignorant 
of the first principles of government, and of the 
w^hole doctrine of private and public rights ; he 
who denies their application to the subject in dis- 
cussion is guilty of intentional treason against the 
rights and privileges of his fellow citizens. Grant- 
ing, for argument sake, but by no means admitting 
it to be true, that the embargo on our maritime 
comm.erce is not a violation of those principles, can 
you, or any one, deny that the embargo on the com- 
merce of the interior is ; and that, in that point of 
view, the inhabitants of Turkey under the protec- 
tion of their fostering Ulama, are (whatever Ameri- 
cans miay think of it) more free and independant 
than those of the states of Vermont, New- York, 
Georgia, or our fellow citizens on the western wa- 
. ters ; indeed than the people of the union, unless the 
embargo law be repealed, and a declaratory act be 
passed to brand it as an usurpation, and to extin- 
guish its eiiects as a precedent. 



57 

Our merchants know, as well as government can 
tell them, the intention of the belligerents, and they 
are much better qualified to calculate the danger 
they incur from captures. NotVv'ithstanding all Mr. 
Jefierson's professions too, we may safely coLfide in 
the merchants for a care of their ovv^i interests, 
superior even to that paternal zeal which lie has al- 
ways manifested in the commercial concerns of the 
union. Before they were interrupted in the exercise 
of those rights, therefore, it u^ould have been deemed 
necessary, by any men vv'ho understood those rights 
and the privileges of society, to have proof before 
them that there was some evil likely to arioe to the 
nation from them. Indeed, instead of hastily pro- 
ceeding to restrain, it was the duty of the govern- 
ment to support and encourage thera. '• Freedom 
'' being necessary to commerce, it is implied in the 
*' duties of nations, that, instead of unnecessary bur- 
•' thens or restrictions, they should support it as far 
** as possible ; therefore those privileges, those par- 
" ticular duties v/hich ojbtain in many places so des- 
" tructive to commerce, are blameable, tmless found- 
'' ed on very important reasons arising fiom the pub- 
" /i<7^"ooc/....Vattel, b. 2. c. 2, 23. 

To the authority of Vattel and the others already* 
cited, I beg leave to add that of Judge Blackstone. 

'' Every wanton and causeless restraint of the will 
of the subject, whether practised by a moriarch, a no- 
bility, or a popular assembly is a degree of tyranny. 
Nay, even laws themselves, whether made with or 
without our consent, if they regulate and constrain 
our conduct in m.atters of mere indifference, without 



SB 

any good had in view, are regulations destructive of 
libert3^...Blackstone, b. 1. c. 1. 126. 

'* That constitution or frame of government, that 
system of laws is alone calculated to maintain civil 
liberty, which leaves the subject entire master of his 
own conduct, except in those points wherein the 
public good requires some direction or restraint.. id." 
Even you, Sir, v/ill hardly venture to deny the 
right of the people to the disposal of their own pro- 
perty, and to free egrsss to market with it, if there 
be not some just ground of apprehension of danger 
from permitting it. It is a privilege inherent in 
every free people, and I maintain that the legislature 
has no right to rob America'iVs of it, as they have by 
the embarp'o ; no rioiit derived from the laws of na- 
ture and nations ; no right derived from the particu- 
lar constitution of this country. 

An embargo, to say the best of it, in the most ur- 
gent case is only a necessary evil, being a formida- 
ble violation of the rights of the free citizen. It 
ought not only never to be resorted to but in -actual 
war and imminent danger, but, in consideration of 
the violence of its operations, ought to continue but 
a very short time. Never, till nov/, was there an em- 
bargo laid, under any despotism, upon such frivolous 
grounds as this we speak of. Hitherto it has been 
resorted to, not to save the property of the indi- 
vidual, but to prevent that property from being con- 
verted into an instrument of warfare upon the coun- 
try ; to prevent, not the person from being im- 
poverished, but the enemy from being enriched, or 
from obtaining intelligence of operations. In what 



war was there ever an embargo laid in France or En- 
gland to prevent captures at sea ? Never. On the 
sailhig of expeditions short-lived embargoes have 
been laid, and enemies ships have been embargoed, 
but never was there one on the principles of this em- 
bargo of ours. It is new, Sir, and, if it v/ere not too 
serious to be triSed with, it would seem peculiarly- 
ridiculous, in this so boastful country of its liberties, 
to see the property of a -nation put under custody, 
placed in the gripe of preunded conservators, every 
man in it interdicted of his free passage to market, 
and the very means of his existence placed under 
sequestration. And for what ? Shew a fair pretext. 
I repeat to you, Sir, it cannot be to save the property 
from capture, for no pretence is made that it could 
be captured on the interior land passage to Canada. 
It cannot be from fear of strengthening the enemy, 
for we are not at war. No, Sir, we must go to the 
secret budget of Talleyrand, Armstrong, Turreau, 
and Messrs. Jeiferson and Madison for the bottom 
of that atrocious act. 

But I m.aintain that congress had no right to lay 
the embargo. The only clause of the constitution 
which goes to the business at all gives Congress 
power merely, '^ to regulate commerce ivltli foreign 
*' nations^ and among the several states^ and with the 
*' Indian tribes, ^"^ This precise specification limits 
the powers granted to the bounds so specified. And 
first, " to regidateJ""* I shall be obliged to any man, 
who can have the ingenuity to shew me that to reg- 
ulate means to destroy, or e^ en to suspend. It 
means the very reverse ; by inference, to regulate 



40 

implies an act done for the preservation of the thing. 
But the Embargo goes actually to destroy our com- 
merce, and thus arises such a gross absurdity, as 
nothing but vvickedness, leagued with folly, could 
possibly produce. Commerce is crushed m toto^ 
m order that the parts of it which might possibly 
be captured may be saved. As a law measure the 
embargo has never been advocated. 

Now see how the fact stands in figures, as stated 

e 
to Congress by My, Ke^, and not denied ; it is 

taken from the treasurer's reports. 

The whole account of domestic produce last 

year was, 48,699,592. 

The v/hole account of that produce exported 
to the continent of Europe, and interdicted 
by British orders, - - .. . 9,762,294. 



Re;Udue that might be exported, - - 38,937,298. 

Thus England interdicts us from nine millions of 
export, and our worthy president and Congress in- 
terdict us from 38 millions, besides throwing our 
hands out of employment, giving our ships to rot, 
and turning our trade out of its customary channels. 
W^at but the influence of Napoleon could have in- 
volved us in such a ruin, such wickedness, such 
an absurdity. 

That there are occasions in which of necessity, an 
embargo would be justifiable the usage of all na- 
tions is a proof, but we find that no such power has 
been delep-ated to the union. Where does it reside 
then ? In an amendment of the constitution is this 
provision, " the powers not delegated to th^ United 
States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to 
the states, are reserved to the states respectively , or 



41 

to the people.*' The right of embargo when neces- 
sary, therefore, is not in Congress, but in the state 
legislatures. 

Sir, I continue to affirm that the people of the 
United States, met in convention, would never have 
delegated to any set of legislators a power to sus- 
pend or destroy commerce, upon such grounds as 
those w^hich have induced that measure, (you Mr. 
Adams allow it was on rumor, British newspaper 
paragraphs and terror) even though those rumors 
could have been proved true by positive evidence. 
Who is there, that knows any thing of the history of 
the constitution, that does not know that it was with 
the greatest difficulty its ratification could be obtain- 
ed, even in its very limited and restricted state. Had 
the constitution contained a clause, vesting the pow- 
er to lay an embargo for an indefinite term, or when 
it should judge the measure expedient for the national 
interest, that clause would have damned it in the 
public opinion, and the constitution would never 
have been ratified by the states. 

Thus, Sir, I have shewn that, not only the embargo 
is unreasonable and unconstitutional in itself, but 
that Congress had no right to pass it. 

But if it had the power at all that power must 
have limits, and those I will make out negatively. 
They could not legally lay an embargo because 
some of the property of the people might be cap- 
tured. They eould not legally lay an embargo with, 
a view to destroy the commerce of the country, and 
turn the whole nation exclusively into agriculturu- 
rists and manufactures. They could not legally lay 

F 



42 

an embargo for the theoretic experiments, to try the 
temper and spirit of the people, or to bring foreign 
nations to terms. They could not lay it (though 
you say as much) on rumors or suspicions, or para- 
graphs in foreign papers ; No, it must be on the 
grounds of some evil that has been severely felt, and 
of which there is the most incontrovertible present 
palpable evidence. In a word, Congress has not 
the power, even by implication, to assume the au- 
thority to lay an embargo upon more trivial grounds, 
or to a greater extent than what has been already 
the customary practice among nations. 

For your zeal in the late cause of your adop- 
tion your old friends will have as little reason to be 
sorry as your new friends to rejoice. Nor will you 
yourself, when you awaken from your reveries have 
much cause for triumph. For my part, I have to 
thank you for many valuable additions to my com- 
mon place book from your rhetorical flourishes ; 
your all devouring instrument of rapine is down 
there in large letters ; it will not be readily forgot- 
ten. Men of your warm and wandering fancy, are 
apt to form whimsical associations, and often it is 
to be believed, patch up the vacuities of their waking 
reflections with scraps from their nightly dreams ; 
and as your golden dreams have lately ran upon the 
patronage of Napoleon, and the friendship and fra- 
ternity of Messrs. JeflTerson and Madison, you may 
possibly have taken your epithet of all devouring 
from the one, and your idea of an instrument of 
rapine from the other. Upon the whok I think it 



4S 



worth a niche in your next lecture upon rhetoric in 
Harvard college. 

Sincerely, sir, I wish you to write just as you do 
for the party you have ©spoused. But if you really 
are in heart, as you pretend to be the friend of Mr. 
Jefferson, and wish to do him, and his cause, and 
his party effectual service, change sides and write 
in favour of his enemies. 

ALFRED. 



u 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




011 838 508 1 



